Category: 5. Entertainment

Listen to new must-hear songs from emerging R&B/hip-hop artists like The Cool Kids and Kairo Keyz.

8/18/2025

Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl announcement took over the world last week; still, the pop queen’s new album announcement didn’t completely overshadow another hectic week in the worlds of hip-hop and R&B.

Last Tuesday (Aug. 12) and Wednesday (Aug. 13), Chris Brown took his career-commemorating Breezy Bowl XX World Tour to East Rutherford’s MetLife Stadium, treating two packed crowds to hours of R&B greatness with some help from Bryson Tiller and Summer Walker. By Thursday (Aug. 14), Lil Yachty took Breezy’s place in the headlines thanks to his appearance on Plaqueboymax’s live stream, in which he played an unreleased track containing a disgustingly disrespectful lyric about the late George Floyd. After publicly pressing him for an apology, former NBA star Stephen Jackson confirmed that he, a close friend of Floyd’s, and Lil Boat had a private conversation to clear the air.

Meanwhile, several major stars unleashed highly anticipated new projects. Cardi B kept her Am I the Drama? rollout with “Imaginary Playerz,” a flip of Jay-Z’s iconic “Imaginary Players” that’s garnered mixed reactions from fans and critics alike. Chance the Rapper ended his six-year wait for his Star Line sophomore studio album, which featured a familiar cast of collaborators, including Jamila Woods, BJ the Chicago Kid, and Vic Mensa. Of course, there was also Chlöe and Moliy’s Diaspora-uniting remix of Yung Bredda’s Full Blown-produced global soca smash hit, “The Greatest Bend Over.”

With Fresh Picks, Billboard aims to highlight some of the best and most interesting new sounds across R&B and hip-hop — from Armani White and Samara Cyn’s new link-up to Ne-Yo’s spin on Joe Leone’s rising hit. Be sure to check out this week’s Fresh Picks in our Spotify playlist below.

• Joe Leone & Ne-Yo, “Over Under (Remix)”

  Just a few days after “Over Under” made its Adult R&B Airplay debut (No. 30), ascendant R&B crooner Joe Leone has shared the song’s Ne-Yo-assisted remix alongside his debut studio album, Invited. “I think you’re bluffin’ babe/ I see it on your face/ And how your legs keep shaking/ Girl I’m glad you came,” Ne-Yo croons in his sultry new first, delivering incredibly crisp harmonies alongside Leone, whose suave tone lays the foundation for the mood of the Curtis “Sauce” Wilson-produced track. — KYLE DENIS

• The Cool Kids, “Foil Bass”

  It’s looking like The Cool Kids are gearing up to follow up the triple CD they dropped back in 2022. “Foil Bass” is the second single they’ve released in the past month, and just like “Banana in the Tailpipe,” this track has that signature Cool Kids knock to it to go along with the duo’s undeniable chemistry. It’s no wonder that they’re one of the most important rap duos of the past 15 years. — ANGEL DIAZ

• Armani White & Samara Cyn, “Ghost”

  Blanco season is on the horizon: Armani White has joined forces with rising star Samara Cyn, and is looking to close out the summer with a bop in “Ghost.” Every listener will have their shoulders grooving as the West Philly native leaves his girl in the dust behind a catchy chorus, on a song built around a familiar Pharrell Williams loop. White passes the rock to Cyn, who dunks the alley-oop, letting the ladies know their boyfriends are watching her every move. “Think you got a church n—a ’til he see Cyn/ Gave that boy the spirit, good God, that’s a smooth b—h,” she flaunts. — MICHAEL SAPONARA

• K CAMP & Ari Lennox, “Floating” 

  K CAMP and Ari Lennox’s sultry, intimate new track explores the euphoria of infatuation through a grounding metaphor (“floating”) of levity and dopamine-aided uplift. They mix seduction and vulnerability, crooning, “Soft kisses got me feeling like you like me,” and “Pretty brown skin, I can’t wait to dip it in,” emphasizing both sensual chemistry and the joy of being desired. Their conversational dynamic captures a mutual fascination, with each expressing excitement and admiration while navigating the thrill of stolen moments. — CHRISTOPHER CLAXTON

• Kairo Keyz, “New Jazz”

  A few months after earning a MOBO Award nomination for best drill act, South London rapper Kairo Keyz has officially shared his New Jazz EP. In 2023, the wonky, whirring, video game-esque synths of new jazz added streaks of personality and verve to the New York drill scene, and Kairo explores that sound further on his new project. Standing as both the album’s titular and introductory track, “New Jazz” finds Kairo spitting braggadocious bars over syncopated snares, complete with a self-assured tone that aims to announce the arrival of a new EP from one of drill’s most promising rising stars. — K.D.

• Laila! feat. Jay Red, “Out There Freestyle”

  Earlier this year, Brooklyn’s Baby Genius was showing mad love to Project Pat on social media. I interviewed her during this phase, and she told me she liked to listen to the Memphis rapper while she trains in Muay Thai — and that she had an unreleased song inspired by Pat. What she didn’t tell me is that she would get her mom to rap on it with her. Now we need a Laila! and Project Pat to link up. — A.D.

• Mudbaby Ru, “Love With a YN”

  Mudbaby Ru ended his hiatus when he returned with his first single of 2025, “Love With a YN,” which finds the Arkansas rapper depicting a relationship going through turbulent trials and tribulations but emerging even stronger. Ru doesn’t want to fully commit until he knows she’s deserving of his loyalty: “She a real-a— b—h she keep it 100,” he raps before later pleading his allegiance, “I’m ready to die for her.” Watch the sensual visual showing off a date night for Ru at home. — M.S.

• TAVE feat. Kenyon Dixon & Stacy Barthe, “Into You” 

  “Into You” finds the sensual trio of TAVE, Kenyon Dixon and Stacy Barthe exploring the value of loving their partner despite their emotional unavailability. Both Dixon and Barthe admit to noticing red flags and challenges in the relationship, yet they choose to embrace imperfections rather than turn away. The song celebrates the push-and-pull of desire and intimacy, highlighting how love can persist even when it’s complicated. — C.C.

• Crimeapple & V Don, “Victor Charlie”

  One of my favorite producers is linking up with one of my favorite rappers for a collab tape: while we’re not sure when Bulletproof Chicken is dropping, if this lead single is a sign of things to come, then I think we got something to look forward to. “We can even face off on camera for bigger guap/ Flip you on tape, you don’t gotta go to Diddy’s spot,” Crime spits over a menacing piano sample, provided by one of the best beat makers in the game.  — A.D.

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Sign Up

In late 2020, the actor and comedian Eva Victor decamped from New York to their cousin’s house in rural Maine with a surprise window of time and an urgent subject. Covid had shut down production on Billions, Showtime’s soapy finance drama on which Victor scored their first regular acting gig. Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, a fan of Victor’s short comedy videos on social media, had DM-ed to offer encouragement and a request: send a script when you’re ready.

That year, everything felt incomprehensibly big – global pandemic, political upheaval, social fracturing. But alone in wintry Maine, Victor turned far inwards, towards a quiet personal trauma. “It’s like a stone gets shoved into the river of your life. There’s a lot of pain in trying to remove it and you can’t,” says Victor. “You just have to find a way for the water to move around it. It’s so unfair that someone threw a stone into your life. It’s hard to wrap your head around any of it.”

The stone was sexual assault, and the film – Victor’s directorial debut, produced by Jenkins – is Sorry, Baby, a remarkably sharp portrait of healing that quietly upends the prevailing script on sexual violence in the long wake of #MeToo.

The film wowed audiences at Sundance and Cannes and garnered word-of-mouth buzz in the US when it was released in June, acclaimed for its welcome reimagining of what critic Parul Sehgal memorably termed the “trauma plot”: trauma as a flattening explanation and defining event. “I think we often paint people as victims,” says Victor. “In that way we make them tragic figures and try to look away from them. Or we make them just one thing, and people are complicated.”

Sorry, Baby presents trauma as an idiosyncratic, fickle, mutable thing, as opposed to the blunt, annihilating force that animates numerous films and TV shows loosely grouped under the #MeToo umbrella, from the black heart of Emerald Fennell’s Promising Young Woman to the deadening shock of Zoë Kravitz’s Blink Twice.

Victor plays Agnes, a twentysomething English academic in a small New England town who, about 25 minutes into the film, experiences something awful. She goes to the home of her thesis supervisor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), after he changes the location of their meeting at the last minute. The camera lingers outside the house, the darkening sky saying all you need to know. “I wanted the film to talk about what happens after this kind of violence,” says Victor. “I didn’t want to show it.”

Afterwards Agnes drives home in mute horror, and tells her best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), what happened in jumbled, detached details. Neither say the word rape, but they both know; Lydie confirms: “Yeah, that’s the thing.” The rest of the film, which proceeds in one chapter per year, builds on principles that feel true to life: that processing is non-linear and inconsistent; that the self is multifaceted and mutable; that life goes on in a whole variety of tones; that trauma can shape a person but not define them. “Ultimately we’re all just afraid,” says Victor. “We don’t want it to be possible that it could happen to someone like us. So we make it seem as if they are particular people who it’s meant to happen to.”

In conversation, Victor is much like their film: warm, chatty, at turns wise and childlike, their long sleeves covering their hands. We discuss the demise of a particularly excellent sandwich shop in Brooklyn, where Victor lived until relocating to Los Angeles last year. They now live in the same city as their best friend – fittingly, as the most important fact about Agnes, at least to the viewer, is her close friendship with Lydie. We first meet the pair four years after the assault, during a heady reunion marked by the half-finished thoughts and tangled limbs of intimate, platonic love. The trauma is tacitly acknowledged, shown clearly in the gulf between how Lydie’s life galloped – city, marriage, baby – while Agnes’s crawled. “I really wanted to give them a fighting chance at being whole people,” says Victor of the first chapter. “If Agnes and Lydie can be these full people who we love, it’s harder to look away from them later on when a bad thing happens. It’s harder to paint Agnes as something, or to categorise her.”

The friendship also provides the canvas for comedy, and Sorry, Baby is – crucially – funny, its characters often speaking in stilted, off-the-cuff blurts. Victor walks a tonal tightrope between deadpan and earnest, the result of years spent working on a comedy career. Raised in San Francisco, they studied acting and playwriting at Northwestern University in Illinois and were active in the school’s improv scene. A few days after graduating in 2016, they moved to New York with aspirations to work on a late-night chatshow. They landed, instead, at the feminist satirical website Reductress, cranking out four to five posts a day (“insane”) and poking fun at the girlbossing cliches of the time. (“Get it, bitch! This woman got in the shower.”)

For a few years, they lived the aspiring comic’s life in New York: standup sets, acting gigs and part-time jobs, including one fitting customers at a bridal shop. (“I was very bad at it,” says Victor, but “it taught me a lot about gender, and how euphoric it can be for some women to feel like women and how dysphoric it can feel for others.”) There were many unsuccessful auditions, scripts that “just weren’t landing. I was wanting to make things, but I felt as if no one was letting me. And I was like, ‘That’s not fair, I’m just going to do it.’”

Victor started posting short videos to what was then Twitter, in which they played arch, spiralling characters – a woman explaining to her boyfriend why they’re going to straight pride, a woman who definitely didn’t kill her husband. Many went viral. Jenkins messaged, and Victor took another crack at screenwriting, although not, they say, intending to speak to anything bigger than themselves, nor against a certain trauma trope. They drew from the interiority in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, the understatement in Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, the beauty of Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love. And they watched Michaela Coel’s “completely transcendent” BBC-HBO series I May Destroy You – perhaps the closest antecedent to Sorry, Baby in terms of treating trauma as a thread, rather than the whole cloth. “You see someone doing something so truthfully, and you wonder: ‘What’s my version of that?’” says Victor.

After reading a first draft of the script in 2021, Jenkins encouraged Victor to direct. Having worked with first-time film-makers on two searing debuts – Charlotte Wells’s Aftersun and Raven Jackson’s All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt – Jenkins and his producing partners Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak put Victor in an ad-hoc directing bootcamp, practising certain shots and shadowing Jane Schoenbrun on the set of their acclaimed film I Saw the TV Glow, before filming for Sorry, Baby commenced in Massachusetts in 2024.

Although years in the making, Sorry, Baby’s smallness, its bracing but uncynical honesty, feels of the moment. The collective momentum of the #MeToo movement has dissipated; backlash (and, often, hellish litigation) has engulfed many women who spoke up; catharsis did not lead to material change. Agnes and Lydie are pessimistic about the chances of accountability, and understandably wary of the criminal justice system. All Agnes has – all anyone has – is herself, her life, her friends. Victor still bristles at any larger movement critique; many times during this press tour, they’ve been asked some version of: What does this say about the #MeToo movement? “And I’m like, ‘Well, by the way, what are we even talking about?’” they laugh. “All I know is this one version of this story, all I want to talk about is this attempt at healing.”

Victor is also reticent on the inspiration for that experience; making movies may be the opposite speed of social media posts, but virality taught Victor “how little I want people to know about my personal life”. They have maintained a privacy line throughout interviews for the film. “I say it’s a very personal story, which is true. And I say it is narrative fiction, in which I find a lot of comfort and joy, because I got to make Agnes and build a world around her that supports the exact story I want to tell.”

And that story is not just trauma – it’s professional success, grief about friends entering a different life-stage, ambivalence about getting older, and the loneliness of being on your own timeline. Agnes, in these chapters, is “very much in process,” says Victor. “As we all are.”

Sorry, Baby is in UK cinemas from 22 August

Nia DaCosta has teased what to expect from her instalment of Danny Boyle‘s 28 Days Later sequel, 28 Years Later.

DaCosta took on directing duties for The Bone Temple, filmed back to back with Boyle’s movie released earlier this year that featured Alfie Williams, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes.

At an Edinburgh International Film Festival event on Monday, DaCosta said fans of the zombie apocalypse franchise will be seeing more of Spike’s story and Jack O’Connell’s character in her movie, set for a January 2026 release.

“Making the 28 Years Later sequel was one of the best filmmaking experiences I’ve had,” DaCosta, director of The Marvels (2023) and Candyman (2021), said. “One of the issues I had with Candyman and Marvels was the lack of a really solid script, which is always gonna just wreak havoc on the whole process. But Alex Garland hands you a script, and you’re like, ‘This is amazing.’ You don’t really have to change it, although I did, I basically asked for more infected. [Laughs.] That was, like, my big contribution.”

“I inherited an amazing cast, then I was given the leeway to cast the rest of the film,” she continued. “There were a couple of locations I inherited. I was given the leeway to develop all the other locations. Some of it overlapped, like the character Samson — Danny and I would collaborate a bit on the look, but at the end of the day, Danny shoots so different from the way I shoot.”

The filmmaker — whose MCU instalment is the highest-grossing film of all-time directed by a Black woman — was in Edinburgh to discuss her varied career from Top Boy to the upcoming Tessa Thompson-starring Hedda, which is world premiering at the Toronto Film Fest next month.

She also went into a little detail about landing the job on one of cinema’s biggest horror franchises. “28 Days Later was one of my seminal films growing up… I had the DVD in my house. I watched it all the time. Obviously, fell in love with Cillian Murphy. And Danny Boyle is a bonkers fucking filmmaker. No one else can make a Danny Boyle film, and that was actually the biggest part of my pitch for the movie. I was like, ‘No one else can do that and I don’t have any intention of doing that. Here’s how I see the film, what do you think?’”

It turns out it was none other than The Zone of Interest helmer Jonathan Glazer who convinced her to take on The Bone Temple. “The time was so terrible because I was finishing Hedda and it overlapped slightly, and I was like, ‘I can’t do it.’ I was at a dinner with Jonathan Glazer and I was like, ‘He’ll tell me not do it.’ I was like, ‘Jonathan, this script’s come around and I don’t know, do you think I should do it?’”

“It’s 28 Years Later and I [thought], the man who made Birth and all his unique, personal films is not going to tell me to do a franchise film. He goes, ‘Do you like the script?’ [I said], ‘Damn it, I love it.’”

The New York-born creative spoke candidly while reflecting on her colorful career so far, from studying at Tisch School of the Arts in New York to her breakout movie Little Woods (2018). She spoke in Edinburgh the day of a retrospective screening for DaCosta’s selected film: Doug Liman’s 1999 comedy crime drama Go.

Edinburgh International Film Festival 2025 runs Aug. 14-20.

“It’s alive … in theaters!”

Guillermo del Toro‘s passion project reboot of Frankenstein is going to get a theatrical release.

Netflix announced Monday that the lavish-looking project will receive a limited release in theaters starting Oct. 17 ahead of its Netflix premiere on Nov. 7.

When the trailer (below) was released back in June and the streamer declare the film “premieres globally” on Netflix in November. At the time, Netflix did not reply to questions about whether the film would be any screenings in theaters, though del Toro himself had previously suggested in an interview that Frankenstein would get at least some theatrical play. At any rate, even a hint of the film not being in theaters resulted in considerable fan outcry at the time.

The film’s official description: “Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro adapts Mary Shelley’s classic tale of Victor Frankenstein, a brilliant but egotistical scientist who brings a creature to life in a monstrous experiment that ultimately leads to the undoing of both the creator and his tragic creation.”

Frankenstein stars Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Felix Kammerer, David Bradley, Lars Mikkelsen, Christian Convery, with Charles Dance, and Christoph Waltz.

Back in 2016, the writer-director elaborated on his passion for the project with an interview with Den of Geek and how he plans to include parts of the novel that are typically left out of other adaptations, such as its framing device which includes the North Pole sequence. So, in a sense, even though the story has been adapted countless times, moviegoers who have seen some of the most popular adaptations of the book might have never seen the “real” (or at least whole) story.

“To this day, nobody has made the book, but the book became my bible, because what Mary Shelley wrote was the quintessential sense of isolation you have as a kid,” he said. “So, Frankenstein to me is the pinnacle of everything, and part of me wants to do a version of it, part of me has for more than 25 years chickened out of making it. I dream I can make the greatest Frankenstein ever, but then if you make it, you’ve made it. Whether it’s great or not, it’s done. You cannot dream about it anymore. That’s the tragedy of a filmmaker. You can dream of something, but once you’ve made it, you’ve made it.”

Fresh off an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last week and the surprise drop of their fifth studio album, Chain Yer Dragon, jam-band juggernaut Goose headlined the Park City Song Summit in Utah this past weekend.

Established in 2019 as a conduit to create and cultivate dialogue about the state of mental/physical health and wellness in the music industry, the PCSS has become a beacon of not only hope and compassion, but one of positive, tangible change.

“There’s a mindset, an energy, and a spirit that you can take away from here,” says Ben Anderson, PCSS founder. “That’s really hard to get in your average run-of-the-mill event. If somebody can leave here and apply that, and live even 10-percent happier? Then, that’s a success for us.”

“It really all boils down to communication,” Goose lead singer Rick Mitarotonda tells Rolling Stone when asked about honing in on the health of a rock band. “When things are getting weird, the vibe’s off, and people are going through stuff, the ability to communicate with each other, understand each other, it means everything.”

Along with Goose, the fifth installment of PCSS included appearances by Dawes, Greensky Bluegrass, Holly Bowling, Marcus King, Nicki Bluhm, Eric Krasno, Jennifer Hartswick, Duane Betts & Palmetto Motel, Anders Osborne, Adam MacDougall, Cimafunk, and LP Giobbi.

“As I get older, I have to think about how to navigate the [music] industry in a healthy way, physically and mentally,” says Krasno, the renowned guitarist who made his fourth trip to PCSS. “It’s great to have a place and a festival that nurtures that side of things. For many years, there wasn’t a lot of attention given to how to be a musician or to be in the business, but also maintain a healthy life.”

The weekend kicked off Thursday evening with a dinner at the Summit Supper Club hosted by celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern. Teaming up with Marcus King, Zimmern tailored the menu to dishes from King’s native South Carolina (think oysters, barbecue, crab cakes). The men have become friends in recent years, bonding through a love of music.

Editor’s picks

“What’s really fun and challenging, for us as food people, is to pay homage to a human being, their music, and the piece of land that they’re from,” Zimmern says. “And to translate that into food, and hope that you experience that at the same time.”

King serenaded the guests, who, following the meal, walked in unison with the Trombone Shorty Foundation Alumni Band up Main Street to the Marquis, where King hit the stage alongside Krasno and Betts. For Betts, the ethos of the PCSS is something he deeply aligns with: He’s been proudly sober for several years.

“I think it’s really important for people to know that they’re not alone,” Betts says. “So many people struggle with mental health in one form or another — anxiety, depression, addiction. Now, at least, they have the guidelines, they have the tools if they want them.”

Betts made a handful of appearances at PCSS, most notably Friday evening with his former bandmates Dawes. The indie-rockers rolled through a wide-swath of their catalog (“All Your Favorite Bands,” “Comes in Waves”), with Betts and Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith duetting on the Allman Brothers’ “Ramblin’ Man.” Betts roared up and down the fretboard of his goldtop Gibson Les Paul, the same guitar used by his late father, Dickey Betts.

Related Content

PCSS also offers numerous “Summit Labs,” informative, live audience conversations about ongoing subjects within the musical realms. One of the most-anticipated of the weekend was the “American Rock n’ Roll Band in 2025,” featuring Krasno, Dawes’ Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, as well as Goose’s Mitarotonda and Peter Anspach.

“I feel like all of my heroes, the people I look up to, built their own world and found their own path,” Mitarotonda says.

“The American rock band has a lane in 2025, but that lane has only gotten smaller,” says Taylor Goldsmith, “at least in this universe of guitar solos, lyrics, upright pianos, that sort of thing.”

“I don’t have any idea how to start a band today. I’m grateful that we have what we have,” Griffin Goldsmith says. “I’m grateful that our fans are already with us, because I’m not sure that methodology of ‘one show at a time, pound the pavement, one fan at a time’ is even feasible unless you have a patron — it’s just too expensive.”

For the Goldsmith brothers, that perspective into their careers also permeates their personal lives. This past January, Griffin lost his home and Taylor had his studio destroyed in the apocalyptic Eaton Fire in the Altadena area of Los Angeles.

“For a long time, we were like, ‘How do we make the show bigger? How do we get the streams up?’ or whatever the hell that means,” Taylor says. “But, then you have kids, and you just want to be able to bring them to a festival and have them see their dad onstage, and be proud in some way. And as long as they’re taken care of, that’s really all that matters.”

Dawes tore through a set on the City Park Stage with Adam MacDougall on keyboards. For MacDougall, the underlying theme of the PCSS strikes close to his heart. A friend of late guitarist Neal Casal (both were longtime bandmates in Chris Robinson Brotherhood and Circles Around the Sun), MacDougall knows first-hand what it means to lose a loved one in the midst of a mental health crisis.

“With Neal, there wasn’t a place to go, that understood the specifics of how that [musical] life can get you down,” MacDougall says.

Casal took his own life in August 2019. Just two months earlier, jam-grass great Jeff Austin also suffered the same fate. The two beloved musicians became a catalyst for new avenues of dialogue and actual change occurring in how mental health is dealt with in the music industry.

Trending Stories

In the aftermath, much-needed organizations like Backline emerged, with the PCSS also continuing to grow and share its mission.

“I think it’s amazing that there’s a way that makes it okay for people to feel they can say they’re not doing well,” MacDougall says of the PCSS. “And having an actual place that’s basically saying, ‘We’re here, we understand that aspect of it’? It’s a huge difference.”

Get weekly rundowns straight to your inbox

Sign Up

Originally appeared on E! Online

Zoe Kravitz knows that Taylor Swift is checking boxes off everyone’s wi$h li$t with her new album.

Less than a week after “The Life of a Showgirl” was announced, Kravitz — who has previously been listed as a co-writer on Swift’s “Midnights” — teased what fans can expect from the upcoming album, which drops Oct. 3.

“I’ve heard some stuff, it’s fantastic,” Kravitz teased in an exclusive E! News interview. “She always brings it. This is what she does. It’s fun to sit back and watch everyone devour what she makes and she cares so much. She puts everything she has into it.”

Naturally, Kravitz couldn’t help but gush over her “great” friendship with the “Eras Tour” performer, adding, “She’s the best.”

But while Kravitz and Swift are busy people with busy lives and can’t see each other as much as they’d like, the “Blink Twice” director has a newfound friend in her “Caught Stealing” co-star Austin Butler.

READ: Zoë Kravitz and Mom Lisa Bonet Almost Lost Snake in Taylor Swift’s House During L.A. Fires

Indeed, the 36-year-old detailed how she and the “Dune” alum immediately hit it off on the set of the Darren Aronofsky crime comedy, which is set to hit theaters August 29.

“There were these moments in scenes where I would just look over and be like, ‘Oh my god real life movie star,’” Kravitz told E! News. “I don’t just mean so gorgeous and talented but also just this look behind the eye that is so present and so intriguing and I feel like we’re living in a time where there’s not a lot of that anymore.”

Butler, for his part, was similarly floored by working with the “High Fidelity” actress.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are major couple goals. The pop icon appeared with her boyfriend Travis Kelce and his brother Jason on their podcast “New Heights” on Wednesday.

“I wish my mind worked as hers does,” he added to E! “She’s so smart and she understands humor so much.”

And even Swift has hopped on the bandwagon to echo just how impressive her pal is at what she does.

As the 35-year-old wrote in an Instagram Story ahead of “Blink Twice” hitting theaters last year, “I’m so blown away by what she’s accomplished here and I can’t wait to watch everyone discover this film and brilliant filmmaker.”

—Reporting by Nikaline McCarley

Taylor Swift always knows how to keep her Swifties on their toes. The pop icon revealed on her website that she has a new album coming out called, “The Life Of A Showgirl.”

Walter Swennen, an artist who began as a poet and later channeled his interest in language into wild, weird paintings, has died at 79. His death was announced by his gallery, Xavier Hufkens, which did not specify a cause.

Swennen rose to fame in Belgium alongside a range of painters interested in the medium’s material properties. But unlike many of his compatriots, Swennen’s art was freer and more playful, filled with written phrases that appeared to be jokes but did not immediately impart their meaning. Alongside those cryptic words, in various languages, Swennen would sometimes paint figures that appeared to have been borrowed from comic books.

Related Articles

Many of his paintings are drily funny. One from 2015 spells out the phrase “FEED THE FISH” in big red letters, followed by a second phrase in loopy cursive: “at your own risk.” Another features a bodiless set of arms contorted to form the fuck-you bras d’honneur gesture. Yet another features a banana peel against a black void, seemingly positioned so that someone might slip on it.

His paintings tended to render language unstable. Swennen’s words “fight for space with nonsignifying elements, and dissolve into them,” critic Mark Prince wrote in a 2012 review for Art in America. “English, French and Flemish speak over each other. The abstraction of a word phases into abstraction as a manifestation of irreducibly visual painterliness.”

Swennen approached such unusual material by painting in ways that were fittingly rather odd. Rather than using conventional wooden supports for his canvases, Swennen often appropriated found pieces of wood and plastic. Sometimes, he would even sub out canvas altogether for wood or metal.

He said in interviews that his method was in part a commentary on what counts as “good” in painting. “I do try to paint against my taste—not only against ‘good taste’ but also in the spirit of disinclination, which I consider a virtue,” he told Frieze in 2016. “It’s difficult to paint against taste. But painting has been very difficult for a long time.”

His off-kilter humor had already charmed critics and artists in Belgium by the time he began to find a loyal following in New York during the 2010s. More than 20 years after his first New York solo show, at Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in the early ’90s, Swennen began showing at Gladstone Gallery in 2015. Of the works in that show, New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote, “Mr. Swennen seems to have found maturity in a determination to extract a maximum of beauty and humor from a minimum of paint.”

Walter Swennen was born in Forest, Belgium, in 1946. When he was 5 years old, his parents decided to have their son begin speaking French instead of Flemish, instilling in Swennen an interest in words, language, and meaning early on. After graduating high school, he studied philosophy and engraving before working toward a degree in psychology at the Université catholique de Louvain.

During the ’60s, he began writing poetry, gaining him the attention of artists such as Marcel Broodthaers. Swennen also began painting and drawing during this time, but he didn’t fully commit himself to a painting career until the ’80s.

In his Frieze interview, he said, “I was happy that I became a painter because I thought painters don’t have to speak. And anyway, from the 1960s on, I had been painting, and studying painting, privately.” Still, he seemed uncomfortable with the notion that he had finally made it as a painter. He noted that he was “not really in the art world,” adding, “What’s more, I don’t have a trademark style and that’s a problem for galleries and collectors.”

Also in that interview, Swennen credited a traveling retrospective that visited Brussels’s WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in 2013 with jumpstarting his career anew. He said that younger artists began looking at his work, and that the dealer Barbara Gladstone, whose gallery has a space in Brussels, met with him as a result of the show.

He suddenly began exhibiting with blue-chip galleries: Xavier Hufkens started showing him in 2014, and Gladstone would go on to give him three solo outings. One of those Gladstone shows also coincided with an exhibition at White Columns, a storied New York alternative space.

Swennen’s CV does not list a single appearance in the Venice Biennale or Documenta, the world’s two biggest recurring art exhibitions. But his influence on younger artists is clear: Sanya Kantarovsky included Swennen’s work in a group show he organized for the defunct New York gallery Metro Pictures, and Mathew Cerletty and Eddie Martinez, two painters several generations Swennen’s junior, showed their art alongside his.

Swennen said in the Frieze interview that his Gladstone shows had given him an unlikely taste of international success. “I understood what it is to live like a king,” he said. “I would like to be a king one day a week!”

The “Real Housewives” franchise has finally touched down in London, and its stars are promising piping hot tea and drama of royal proportions.

In the debut episode of “The Real Housewives of London,” which is now streaming on Hayu, viewers meet five of the show’s six lovely ladies: Aussie transplant and former Miss Galaxy Universe Juliet Mayhew; finance maven turned cake entrepreneur Nessie Welschinger; alum of “Real Housewives of Jersey” (another international spinoff) and fashionista Karen Loderick-Peace; skincare business owner and model Amanda Cronin and high-society socialite Panthea Parker. Juliet Angus — an American expat and founding cast member of Bravo’s “Ladies of London” — will be introduced in the show at a later time.

In just 45 minutes on screen, wealth is flaunted, personalities are revealed and storylines previewed. Cronin is presented as the ringleader, gathering the ladies together for an International Women’s Day celebration to tote her burgeoning skincare brand. Mayhew shows off her not-so-humble abode — complete with a tennis court — and drops some royal names, while Loderick-Peace is undergoing massive renovations to an already million-pound townhouse. Welschinger proves she has the best of both worlds by running down her past as an investment banker while baking a cake for Cronin’s party, and Parker establishes herself as a firecracker by drudging up the show’s first scandal. At the end of the episode, Mayhew and Parker clash at Cronin’s party over Mayhew’s loyalty to a dentist friend who Parker claims gave her son seven fillings instead of fixing his braces.

It’s all quite silly, but as Variety found out when catching up with all six Housewives in person, the incident clearly still strikes a nerve. As Angus says: “I can feel the tension. It’s palpable.” Read on for more about so-called “Teethgate,” choosing to be on “Real Housewives” over Bravo’s “Ladies of London” reboot and their favorite franchise iterations.

When did you first get the call about “Real Housewives of London,” and what was your reaction?

Juliet Mayhew: I got the call last summer. I was in New York with Caroline Stanbury — she was doing her reunion for “Dubai” Housewives and I’d been seen on her socials. I thought it was a hoax. She was like, “No, honey, they’re recruiting for ‘Real Housewives of London!’” I was like, “Are you serious?” She’s like, “Give them a call.” And I’m like, “How’s that going to work if you’re not in it?” Well, more for me because here we are.

Juliet Angus: Mine’s not so straightforward — I think it’s fair to say that there were two shows being talked about in town. So yeah, “Ladies of London,” which I’ve done, and this. And yes, they reached out last summer, and I thought I should probably be doing “Ladies of London,” but I think it just came down to the brand and doing something different. Why go back to something you’ve done before?

Nessie Welschinger: They tried to get in touch with me last summer as well but I ignored everything for six months because I thought it was a hoax. And I was also in New York and Juliet [Mayhew] called me and was like, “These guys are trying to get in touch with you, would you take their call?” And I said, “Oh, is it real?” And she said, “I guess so.” Then we had a chat, and the rest was history. I think I was their last hire.

Karen Loderick-Peace: When I got the news I was excited, I was over the moon. It was like Christmas, New Year’s and birthday had come early all in one. A pinch-me moment.

Amanda Cronin: I was also approached for another show, and then this came along. Again, I wasn’t really sure what it was all about, if it was real. And then I reached out and had a coffee with [the producers] and then the next day, I went on camera. I wasn’t expecting it, it did come out of the blue and I was looking at something else at the time. But when I found out it was the “Real Housewives” — that’s the real deal.

Panthea Parker: Same as me, I thought it was a hoax, so I ignored it for a few weeks and then they reached out again. And then they called me, and I was like, “Oh my God, darling, that was me 15-20 years ago, not now! You found me at the wrong time. What are you doing? No way, absolutely not. Do you know who my husband is? I’m mistress solicitor, I sit with lords, no way.” And I just laughed, and I went to dinner that night going, “They’re mad. Can you imagine?” I mean like, Kate Middleton comes to [my country estate] to come play rugby against my son. And yeah, then what happened is they’re very good at their job.

Were you familiar with the other “Real Housewives” shows and if so, what’s your favorite?

Mayhew: We love the Aussies, but I have to say “Beverly Hills.” That’s got some real icons and I think they really bring it. And to be fair, that’s really the only one that I’ve followed over the years. They’ve got some great personalities on that show, so I’ll give it to the girls — Erika Jayne, I just love her dryness.

Angus: I’d probably say “Beverly Hills” and “New York” — I’ve lived in both cities, and I’m a big city girl.

Welschinger: Oh, I love “Salt Lake.” I absolutely love the whole cast from “Salt Lake,” and Lisa Barlow gave me some great advice for the show as well.

Angus: I need to watch that.

Loderick-Peace: I love “Atlanta” and “Beverly Hills.” My favorite housewife is obviously Lesa Milan from “Dubai,” but I love Kyle [Richards] from “Beverly Hills,” because she’s been on the show for so long and no matter what, she just continues. And I just love that about her — her resilience.

Cronin: I love “Salt Lake” — I’ve watched it since day one, and I was very close with Meredith [Marks] before the show. But I also love “Beverly Hills” and “Orange County.” I saw them all in the beginning. I was a massive fan. Kathy Hilton, Kyle [Richards], Meredith [Marks] — and I love Mary [Cosby].

Parker: I’d never watched “Real Housewives” ever. I used to love “The Kardashians,” and then I got married and my husband’s like, “Your brain’s going to turn to mush.” But I did some homework, and I’ve watched all the original “New York” — I would say that’s the real deal, in my humble opinion.

Let’s talk Episode 1. Juliet Angus, we haven’t been introduced to you yet, but tell me a bit about what it’s been like being the American in the cast.

Angus: There’s a few of us here, and I know there’s a lot more wanting to come over. But I love waving the flag here. I’m so blessed to live here. I’ve lived in Chicago, L.A., New York, Montreal and I feel like this is home now. My kids were raised here, and I think this is such a great representation, this cast and this group of women, of what really London’s about. We’re all so different, from different parts of the world, we have such individualities to us — which really is what London’s all about.

What was your general reaction to the first episode?

Mayhew: Seeing yourself on film is always a big surprise for everyone. I think it was great how they managed to edit and give space for each of us to show ourselves and our personalities and our families. Let’s see how it unravels.

Loderick-Peace: I think production did a good job. When I saw it, I’m like, “These people are amazing.” I mean, the fact that it kept going in such a beautiful, organic way, and the way they show London and our homes and everything, they just make it look so beautiful, so flawless.

Cronin: I think Episode 1 was really important to set the scene and we just see London in its best light and the beautiful glamour and elegance of the women and of the way we live. I think we captured that, and then the drama as well. It’s got a bit of everything.

Speaking of drama, things immediately heat up between Juliet Mayhew and Panthea over “Teethgate.” Do you two have any regrets about how that went down or thoughts about how it was portrayed on screen?

Mayhew: I think I reacted the way that I reacted because I’m not happy about good friends being talked about. But it was brought to the camera, and we dealt with it as one would deal with it. We’re not all going to get on or have the same opinions on things or look at things the same way, so it is what it is. And that’s real; that’s reality television.

Parker: Yeah, that’s real. I couldn’t sit there and be fake, you know. Obviously, friendships take a turn and you expect a certain – if I bumped into her at other parties, she was never ever that warm. So yeah, she was just ever so warm that day — it was like my new best friend, and I’m like, “Oh my God, this is so not what’s been going on.” So it wouldn’t have been real if we had called each other up before this and sorted our problems. I guess the producers know what they’re doing. Maybe they wanted this, right?

Mayhew: I think six years is a long time to hold onto something, so I live each day as it comes.

Loderick-Peace: I don’t necessarily think the producers wanted it, because I’ve spoken to Panthea before and I think Panthea walking in the room and seeing Juliet Mayhew all over again, I think that’s where emotions start to run wild. So it’s not like production wanted it, because we were being genuine, we were being real. But I think for Panthea, that triggered a nerve when she saw Juliet and had to be in a room with Juliet. So I think that’s where it stems from.

Parker: I think we’re all at an age where we just burn bridges, move on, block, block, block.

Welschinger: Great question, by the way.

Angus: Literally, I can feel the tension. It’s palpable.

OK, moving on! if you had to describe the rest of the season in a few words, what would you say?

Mayhew: Adventurous.

Angus: Oh, God. Like, fight club.

Welschinger: I would say fireworks, good and bad.

Loderick-Peace: Earthquake. Volcano.

Cronin: It’s a rollercoaster.

Parker: Even more drama.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.